2INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Intercultural communication is an important skill that people require in order to
interact with people belonging different culture (Yoshida et al., 2018). In order to develop
competencies in intercultural behavior, one must first gain understanding of the differences in
culture and different ways of interacting in it (Sarwari & Abdul Wahab, 2017). In the article
of Bennett (1998), the author talks about differences in upper-case and lower case cultures
and the different approaches that one can use to deal with different cultural contexts where
communication is needed. Reflecting on the article, I find many concepts that we were taught
during the module. In this essay, the key concepts of the article and their understanding
through the module learning will be established.
The very first concept that Bennett (1998), introduces is the Upper-Case Culture and
Lower-Case Culture. In many cases, people misplace the idea of culture with cultural
institutions. Culture has two aspects and the first is the objective culture which is related to
the institutional aspects like art, literature, music, drama, social and linguistic systems, in
short, those aspects that have traditionally been associated with culture (Bennett, 1998). This
is considered to the higher point of culture (Bennett, 1998). The second is the Lower-Case or
subjective culture which includes the psychological aspects of people’s culture of the group
itself (Yoshida et al., 2018). The thinking pattern of the groups, their behavior, their rituals,
norms and habits all create the subjective aspect of culture. It is through the development of
subjective culture that people develop the skills related to intercultural interactions (Sarwari
& Abdul Wahab, 2017). The implication of this learning is on my personal and professional
development as intercultural interaction skills are useful for my future workplace.
The next key concept introduced by Bennett (1998), is the idea of individualistic and
collectivist culture as learned in our module. Bennett calls these cultural difference as high
level abstraction and low level abstraction. The individualistic cultures are quite different
than the other and the interaction with them vary for the same reason. For example, USA is

+13062052269

info@desklib.com

THE INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

Contribute Materials

Related Documents

Reflective Writing | Learning Modules